Breakfast With COFEPRIS at the British Chamber of Commerce

On Wednesday, Aug. 24, Mexico Health Review was at Futuro de la Regulación Sanitaria (The Future of Sanitary Regulation), a talk by COFEPRIS’ Julio Sánchez y Tépoz, held at the British Chamber of Commerce.

The future is near and it is digital. COFEPRIS confirmed plans to digitalize 50 of its procedures and announced that the complete list will be released in October 2016. As Mexican health authorities race to clear their backlog of requests and simplify inefficient procedures, digitalization can only be a boon to this growing industry.

On the regulatory side, NOM-220-SSA1 -2015 is soon to come into force. This norm defines the guidelines for the installation and operation of pharmacovigilance in Mexico. It will define the concepts, participants and their responsibilities as well as the methodology for the detection and control of information regarding the side effects caused by medicines and vaccines on the population, according to the latest project paper published on the COFEPRIS website. This NOM is a modification of the existing NOM from 2002.

Many companies have been telling us how important prevention is. With the burden of non-degenerative and chronic diseases weighing heavily on the shoulders of public institutions, COFEPRIS is one of the few bodies with a program focusing directly on prevention in place. Sánchez announced he plans to continue with “6 Pasos de la salud con prevención” (6 preventative health steps), a program targeted at the poorest and most marginalized communities. It encourages good hygiene practices and access to sanitation as sustainable and effective ways to prevent disease. It has been translated into 17 indigenous languages to help reach population in rural communities. It aims to improve health from the home onwards and implement positive lifestyle changes. The program is operated in cooperation with INEA (the National Institute for Adult Education).

COFEPRIS is also trying to facilitate communication between it, the industry and Mexican citizens. It has opened up a new hotline for questions and is urging people to use it and get in touch. It takes 16,000 calls per month! Although most of these are for orientation purposes, it is also urging people to use it to denounce bad practices and issues within the industry.